One of Lon­don's icon­ic cabs wrapped in To­ba­go Be­yond brand­ing im­agery has tak­en to the streets of the British cap­i­tal as part of a new brand­ing strat­e­gy be­ing rolled out at the World Trav­el Mar­ket 2018 (WTM).

The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BATT) is urg­ing the Op­po­si­tion to ful­ly co­op­er­ate to en­sure the pas­sage of the In­come Tax (Amend­ment) Bill 2018. It was on­ly last week that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem faces for­eign cen­sure and chaos if Par­lia­ment failed to pass a bill to share tax de­tails with for­eign states.

Di­vali, the Hin­du fes­ti­val of lights, has en­joyed strong ties to T&T’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty over the years, ac­cord­ing to Aneela Bhag­wat, a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC).

Cin­e­maONE Gem­stone 4DX CEO and di­rec­tor In­grid Jahra is pleased the com­pa­ny has raised near­ly half of some $30.8 mil­lion it is seek­ing from its first ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing (IPO).

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness Awards are meant to in­spire fu­ture en­tre­pre­neurs, CEO Gabr­i­al Faria said on Thurs­day evening.

T&T has lost its place as the largest ex­porter of am­mo­nia in the world ac­cord­ing to the lat­est in­dus­try fig­ures.

The steps banks are tak­ing to gear up for dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and the sup­port that is be­ing made avail­able to small­er-scale busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in the non-oil econ­o­my were among the top­ics ex­plored by Nigel M. Bap­tiste, pres­i­dent and CEO of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, in a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view he gave to Ox­ford Busi­ness Group’s on­line broad­cast­ing chan­nel, Glob­al Plat­form.

Some peo­ple ask: why should I save my mon­ey in a bank ac­count as op­posed to un­der my bed or in a cash pan? While sav­ing your mon­ey at home un­der your bed or in a cash pan can be con­ve­nient to you, sav­ing at a bank can be even bet­ter for your cur­rent and fu­ture fi­nan­cial health.

The steps banks are tak­ing to gear up for dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and the sup­port that is be­ing made avail­able to small­er-scale busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in the non-oil econ­o­my were among the top­ics ex­plored by Nigel M. Bap­tiste, pres­i­dent and CEO of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, in a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view he gave to Ox­ford Busi­ness Group’s on­line broad­cast­ing chan­nel, Glob­al Plat­form.

Some peo­ple ask: why should I save my mon­ey in a bank ac­count as op­posed to un­der my bed or in a cash pan? While sav­ing your mon­ey at home un­der your bed or in a cash pan can be con­ve­nient to you, sav­ing at a bank can be even bet­ter for your cur­rent and fu­ture fi­nan­cial health.

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon says she has been get­ting re­ports of price goug­ing in the af­ter­math of re­cent floods in parts of the coun­try.

More and more, dig­i­tal cur­ren­cies will per­me­ate every as­pect of com­merce and oth­er as­pects of life. Where it gets tricky is when peo­ple who un­der­stand more about tech­nol­o­gy and less about eco­nom­ics start of­fer­ing fi­nan­cial ad­vice to peo­ple who un­der­stand lit­tle of ei­ther.

So­ca War­riors duo of Shel­don Bateau and cap­tain Khaleem Hy­land are hop­ing to see a con­tin­u­ous run of im­prove­ment by the team as the build-up to next June’s CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup con­tin­ues.

Cheque­da De­boulet se­cured a place in­to the Girls Un­der-19 fi­nal as well as both Girls Dou­bles and Mixed Dou­bles fi­nals of the So­lo Na­tion­al Bad­minton Cham­pi­onship to be held to­day at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre (NRC) in Tacarigua.

The Windies Women crick­eters will look to end strong­ly to­day, when they play Eng­land in their fi­nal Group A match of the ICC World Cup at the Dar­ren Sam­my Crick­et Ground in St. Lu­cia from 4 pm.

There has been this on­go­ing de­bate most­ly in hu­man de­vel­op­ment fields —about this thing framed as na­ture ver­sus nur­ture. The na­ture-camp says that suc­cess­ful peo­ple are born with traits that make them suc­cess­ful. The nur­ture-camp coun­ters that suc­cess­ful peo­ple are suc­cess­ful be­cause they were nur­tured and taught in a pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment.

PROV­I­DENCE – Off­spin­ner Jess Watkin spurred New Zealand to their first win of the ICC Women’s Twen­ty20 World Cup via a 54-run vic­to­ry over Pak­istan at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um here Thurs­day night.

On the heels of a 1-0 tri­umph over the T&T “So­ca War­riors” in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match in Tehran, Iran on Thurs­day, Iran’s coach Car­los Queiroz said, he was im­pressed with the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion by the vis­it­ing T&T team.

As the coun­try grap­ples with fresh flood­ing across the South­land, the na­tion’s top crick­eters are hop­ing for good weath­er so that they can take to the field to raise funds for those af­fect­ed.

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary eased its way in­to the fi­nal of the South Zone In­ter­Col com­pe­ti­tion in the Shell/ First Cit­i­zens Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League on Thurs­day evening.

PROV­I­DENCE – Off­spin­ner Jess Watkin spurred New Zealand to their first win of the ICC Women’s Twen­ty20 World Cup via a 54-run vic­to­ry over Pak­istan at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um here Thurs­day night.

On the heels of a 1-0 tri­umph over the T&T “So­ca War­riors” in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match in Tehran, Iran on Thurs­day, Iran’s coach Car­los Queiroz said, he was im­pressed with the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion by the vis­it­ing T&T team.

As the coun­try grap­ples with fresh flood­ing across the South­land, the na­tion’s top crick­eters are hop­ing for good weath­er so that they can take to the field to raise funds for those af­fect­ed.

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary eased its way in­to the fi­nal of the South Zone In­ter­Col com­pe­ti­tion in the Shell/ First Cit­i­zens Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League on Thurs­day evening.

Your gums are like cush­ions for your teeth; they sur­round the tooth from its crown to its root in the jaw and help to sup­port a healthy mouth. Look­ing af­ter your gums is just as im­por­tant as look­ing af­ter your teeth, and with­out rou­tine clean­ing gum dis­ease can oc­cur.

While I don’t be­lieve in a one-size-fits-all ap­proach to treat­ing any con­di­tion, there are cer­tain di­etary changes that any woman deal­ing with hor­mone im­bal­ances can con­sid­er to sup­port their con­di­tion. I am coach­ing many clients who are deal­ing with painful and ir­reg­u­lar pe­ri­ods, in­fer­til­i­ty, un­ex­plained weight gain, low en­er­gy, anx­i­ety and mood swings which are com­mon signs and symp­toms of hor­mone im­bal­ances. By mak­ing changes to the foods that they eat every­day, their symp­toms have im­proved, as they were able to feed their bod­ies with the nu­tri­ents they need for op­ti­mal health.

Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer is a dis­ease in which ma­lig­nant (can­cer­ous) cells form in the tis­sues of the pan­creas. This type of can­cer is quite lethal; it shows no signs and can spread very rapid­ly, leav­ing it usu­al­ly un­di­ag­nosed un­til the very late stages. Na­tal­ie Sab­ga is the founder of the John E Sab­ga Foun­da­tion for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer. She start­ed this foun­da­tion in hon­or of her late hus­band John who passed away from pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. His time with the dis­ease was very brief and he passed quite swift­ly, Na­tal­ie ex­pressed. In a re­cent in­ter­view, here’s what she had to say.

As doc­tor I see about a pa­tient’s in­di­vid­ual health at every con­sul­ta­tion. But, in the grand scheme of things, it is re­al­ly the col­lec­tive pop­u­la­tion’s health that is a true mea­sure of our na­tion’s progress when we speak in terms of achiev­ing mil­len­ni­um goals and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. As we con­tin­ue to in­crease in­vest­ment in health­care, the in­ci­dence and preva­lence of chron­ic dis­ease and their com­pli­ca­tions con­tin­ue to rise to alarm­ing pro­por­tions. One may say that, the flaw is in the health­care sys­tem it­self, which re­sults in no re­turns in this sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment of our bud­get. How­ev­er, if we look at de­vel­oped coun­tries like the USA and in Eu­rope, the same sce­nario oc­curs. There­fore, fo­cus­ing on health­care alone, and one that is on­ly cen­tered on the in­di­vid­ual con­sul­ta­tion, means that we are def­i­nite­ly miss­ing the boat where pop­u­la­tion health is con­cerned. Apart from health­care and its fund­ing, there are oth­er vari­ables that im­pinge on in­di­vid­ual health, which in turn af­fects pop­u­la­tion health that may not be ob­vi­ous to us and, more im­por­tant­ly, our pol­i­cy mak­ers.

I feel con­fi­dent to make this state­ment be­cause of my per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences with Nurs­es on the JBF­SU. Our nurs­es wear many hats and more of­ten than not, go way be­yond the call of du­ty. There are dif­fer­ent types of nurs­es, Reg­is­tered Nurs­es (RN), Nurs­ing As­sis­tants (NA) and Pa­tient Care As­sis­tants (PCA), but they all have to be born with a spe­cial heart of gold to love and care for chil­dren with crit­i­cal ill­ness­es. It’s not easy to hear a child cry­ing out for pain meds and plead­ing, “Nur­sie, help me please," but the pain meds are not due for an­oth­er hour. Their ded­i­ca­tion al­lows them to be there, help­ing in what­ev­er way they can to make the sit­u­a­tion eas­i­er for both par­ent and pa­tient as the time pass­es slow­ly. The re­al­i­ty of go­ing home af­ter a shift and get­ting a call that one of your ba­bies did not make it must be dif­fi­cult to deal with.

Most of us have had an en­e­my or two, but lit­tle did you know your biggest en­e­mies are liv­ing in­side of you and they’re called sabo­teurs. Sabo­teurs are the set of mind pat­terns that gov­ern your every move. They au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in­flu­ence your be­liefs, thoughts and be­hav­iors, and they are steer­ing you in the wrong di­rec­tion that is, you’re sab­o­tag­ing your­self. But, you can­not talk about the sabo­teurs with­out talk­ing about some­thing called the sage. The sage is your in­fi­nite wis­dom and it’s the good part of this equa­tion. When your sage is ac­ti­vat­ed, you’re op­er­at­ing from an­oth­er part of the brain.

What is it? The fas­cia is a band or sheet of con­nec­tive tis­sue, pri­mar­i­ly col­la­gen, be­neath the skin that at­tach­es, sta­bi­lizes, en­clos­es, and sep­a­rates mus­cles and oth­er in­ter­nal or­gans. It is a spe­cial­ized sys­tem of the body that has an ap­pear­ance sim­i­lar to a spi­der’s web or the mem­branes of an or­ange.

For the last three years I have been sub­scribed to the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture (CSA) pro­gram. I pay a month­ly sub­scrip­tion and every week I col­lect a bas­ket of as­sort­ed fruits and veg­eta­bles. This way, I en­sure that I have fresh pro­duce on hand and be­cause I don’t like to waste, I make sure I eat it all. It has al­so helped me to ex­pand the va­ri­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles that I eat. For ex­am­ple, I am not a huge fan of caraille, but when it is in my week­ly bas­ket, I will eat it or juice it. The best part for me is that I can sleep in on Sat­ur­day morn­ings and I don’t have to head to the mar­ket ear­ly as my goods are al­ready set aside.

What is it? The fas­cia is a band or sheet of con­nec­tive tis­sue, pri­mar­i­ly col­la­gen, be­neath the skin that at­tach­es, sta­bi­lizes, en­clos­es, and sep­a­rates mus­cles and oth­er in­ter­nal or­gans. It is a spe­cial­ized sys­tem of the body that has an ap­pear­ance sim­i­lar to a spi­der’s web or the mem­branes of an or­ange.

For the last three years I have been sub­scribed to the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture (CSA) pro­gram. I pay a month­ly sub­scrip­tion and every week I col­lect a bas­ket of as­sort­ed fruits and veg­eta­bles. This way, I en­sure that I have fresh pro­duce on hand and be­cause I don’t like to waste, I make sure I eat it all. It has al­so helped me to ex­pand the va­ri­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles that I eat. For ex­am­ple, I am not a huge fan of caraille, but when it is in my week­ly bas­ket, I will eat it or juice it. The best part for me is that I can sleep in on Sat­ur­day morn­ings and I don’t have to head to the mar­ket ear­ly as my goods are al­ready set aside.

Who is a Fam­i­ly Care­giv­er? A fam­i­ly care­giv­er pro­vides sup­port to an­oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber in need. The loved one can be sick, dis­abled, ag­ing or they sim­ply can­not per­form dai­ly tasks for them­selves.

Barfi’s best qual­i­ties are per­fect­ly re­flect­ed in one of Dreamy Creamy’s most pop­u­lar ice-creams. One look at the moun­tain­ous scoop and you know you’re in for a per­fect­ly sweet, spiced and creamy ex­pe­ri­ence. The clas­sic In­di­an del­i­ca­cy has been a fea­tured flavour in Dreamy Creamy’s ice-creams since Oc­to­ber 2014.

While we are, for the present, jus­ti­fi­ably fo­cused on re­lief for and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the large num­ber of res­i­dents who have been di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the dev­as­ta­tion of the re­cent flood­ing, very lit­tle at­ten­tion is be­ing paid by the au­thor­i­ties or af­fect­ed res­i­dents to proac­tive mea­sures of a pre­ven­tive na­ture which will elim­i­nate flood­ing in many in­stances and min­imise its sever­i­ty in oth­er cas­es.

Our read­ers are prob­a­bly won­der­ing where I am go­ing with to­day’s col­umn which seeks to pro­vide a clin­i­cal analy­sis of the many nois­es that con­tin­ue to pound in the ears of this coun­try that quite frankly can add lit­tle or no val­ue to the ad­vance­ment of T&T. I con­tin­ue to see many of the nois­es bor­der­ing on dis­re­spect for oth­ers al­most as if we’re nav­i­gat­ing in an un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic en­vi­ron­ment. Let it not be for­got­ten that ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is the key that un­locks many doors and al­so of­fers many new and ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, and there­fore, when tan­gi­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies be­come con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with un­nec­es­sary nois­es, much of which have to do with self-ag­gran­dis­e­ment, it on­ly sets back our de­vel­op­ment both as a peo­ple and a coun­try. It’s as if we are now in some kind of war zone where one’s climb up the lad­der of suc­cess now re­sides in neg­a­tive­ly pulling at the char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty of oth­ers and I sit and ask why? More time is spent on chastis­ing oth­ers rather than tak­ing the time to un­der­stand how the hap­pen­ings in oth­er parts of the world can im­pact our econ­o­my. More and more politi­cians and oth­er im­por­tant of­fice hold­ers con­tin­ue to dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion which may be less about the re­al­i­ty and truth and more about ful­fill­ing a par­tic­u­lar agen­da, and there­in lies the im­por­tance of us as civic-mind­ed cit­i­zens to en­gage in re­search to un­earth the truth as this is our na­tion­al space where we all need to co-ex­ist.